Policy makers, empirical researchers and theoreticians have struggled with the problem of civil commitment for decades. Legislators and scientists alike have focused on one aspect of civil commitment: initial commitments, which begin a patient's involuntary episode in the mental health system. Many patients, however, remain in the hospital after their initial commitment expires, and so must be recommitted if they are to remain in involuntary treatment. Patients in recommitment hearings are those to whom mental health policy is most difficult to apply: the chronically ill, the elderly, and those for whom no placements are available in the community. Likewise, the issues in contention at recommitment hearings may be different from those at initial commitments. For the recommitment patient, availability of continuing care may be as important as imminent danger to others; ability to care for self may be as important as danger to self. Nevertheless, legislative and scientific paradigms designed for initial commitments have been applied to recommitments as well. This is a proposal for a study of recommitment at Western State Hospital in Virginia. During a three month period, every commitment hearing--initials and recommitments--will be observed, and demographic and psychiatric data recorded on the patients involved. Six months later, the patients will be followed up. Some will have remained in the hospital, and will require a second hearing: these will be observed as well. Others will have been released as a result of the first hearing, or have been committed at the first hearing but discharged during the next six months: these patients will be followed up via the community service agencies responsible for their continuing care. Analyses will compare initial and recommitment hearings in terms of patient and process variables, examine longitudinal predictors of hearing outcome and community treatment at six months, and assess the impact of community mental health agencies on patients' careers in the state hospital. Multivariate logistic modeling and regression procedures will supplement the bivariate descriptive statistics commonly reported in this research area.